


Flirting at the government level

by Sketch_A_Bow



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cheeky Lestrade, Cops DO love donuts, Fluff, Lestrade is an adorable bottomless pit, M/M, Yes Percy Weasley is Mycroft's intern, don't ask why, reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:22:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sketch_A_Bow/pseuds/Sketch_A_Bow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft has to deal with Sherlock being a prat because he is his brother, but then suddenly Lestrade makes it much less of an imposition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flirting at the government level

**Author's Note:**

> Just random little one shot of cuteness because Mystrade is lovely and happiness injections are a necessary part of life.

     This was it. He was finally going to strangle Sherlock with his umbrella. Mycroft glared at the screen in front of him, his face twisting into a grimace as he read the illegible felt-tip message scrawled on a piece of spare cardboard. Sherlock was casually holding the sign behind his back, cocked unerringly into the blinking face of one of the CCTV cameras.

 

     ‘Mycroft’s mansion – Where diets go to die.’

 

     He swore he could feel his blood pressure rising. Taking a deep breath and stilling his twitching, Mycroft switched the screen to a camera view a few streets over.

 

     His eyes widened and he felt a vein start throbbing in his head. A homeless woman was propped on the street corner, with her tatty clothes, a tin cup, and a shabby poster. It read, in much neater print,

 

     ‘If Mycroft emptied his cupboards, it could feed half the homeless.’

 

 

     Mycroft wanted to burn something. He began flipping through the various cameras as though he was channel surfing, eyes moving rapidly over each scene. He discovered 25 more signs, some pinned cleverly to taxi roofs, another spelled out in stones along the Thames, and several graffiti pieces that were clearly the work of Sherlock’s delinquent friends.

 

 

     While staring down a particularly creative insult held by a trio of dummies in a shop window, Mycroft’s silent tirade was interrupted.

 

     “Excuse me, sir? Its half past four, and I know you usually don’t go out for lunch. I was wondering if I could get you anything?” Percy peeked further around the corner when he was met with silence, and his eyes widened as he took in Mycroft’s thunderous expression. “Sir?”

 

 

     He peered at the screen, eyebrows almost disappearing into his ginger hair as he read the sign. He straightened up, glancing at his boss. “I shall have a team dispatched immediately to intercept and destroy all such blasphemous signage. And I will make sure something is picked up from Laredo’s for you to enjoy while you watch the progress. Mycroft allowed himself a sigh, sinking back into the chair just a fraction.

 

 

     “Percival, you are a wonder.”

 

 

      Percy just smirked.

 

     “I am simply performing my role to the best of my ability, sir.”

 

 

     Mycroft just looked at him. “Hmm, indeed you are. I fear I won’t be able to hold on to you as my assistant for long, and I already bemoan the loss.”

 

 

     Percy just smiled, nodded, and departed the room quietly.

 

 

     An hour later, Mycroft finished off his delightful chicken penne as the last sign was wrested from Sherlock as he left the crime scene. The look on his face was enough to make Mycroft break into a full smile, and he began to chuckle as he remembered all the times he had been the recipient of that exact look throughout their childhood. Oh, how Mummy had fussed when they came back to the house covered in mud and leaves. They had almost caused her to faint the time they had been dragged in by the governess, both thoroughly stung by the bees Sherlock was so fond of.

 

 

     Oh, and they had despised that governess. He and Sherlock had combined forces to have her soundly booted within a fortnight. That was how they had solved any problem they were faced with as children: a joined maelstrom of frightening amounts of intellect, stubbornness, and ingenuity. Mycroft sighed. For all of the irritation Sherlock caused him, he did truly care for his brother. Despite the fact that he could be SUCH a pain. But for now, crisis had been averted. He only hoped not too many people had noticed his name popping up across London. Unlikely, since most normal people had nowhere near the level of observation required to even pick up on such a trend, let alone follow it.

 

 

     Much to Mycroft’s chagrin, there was at least ONE person who not only noticed the oddity, but took full advantage of it. It was only three days later when the event first occurred. Mycroft had just flipped over to the CCTV camera aimed at the latest crime scene that Sherlock was terrorizing. He watched with amusement as a wake of scandalized expressions followed his brother down the alley. This really was best reality television he could think of. His attention shifted though as a distinctive crown of silver hair appeared on the edge of the camera’s screen. Sherlock made a beeline for the Detective Inspector, waving his arms madly and no doubt insulting the entirety of Scotland Yard. But for all of Sherlock’s wild gesticulating, Lestrade maintained an air of passive indifference that impressed even Mycroft.

 

 

     He recalled the first time he had met Lestrade. Sherlock had just spectacularly flunked his way out of University the year before, and had quickly sunk further into the drug habits that were apparently the only thing he had picked up from his expensive schooling. Mycroft was at the end of his wits, having run through most every scheme he could think up on his own. Mummy was in hysterics, both dreading and begging for any news of her trouble child. After failing bribery, threats, and removal from the country, Mycroft had specialized his job to include access to all CCTV footage, live and recorded, and watched his little brother every moment he could spare. Sherlock had gone into a rage after discovering Mycroft’s actions, but there was little he could do to stop him. Then, Mycroft had begun intercepting and succinctly ‘arranging’ every drug dealer Sherlock met into a swift disappearance. His job had gone up several pay grades and he was applauded as a miracle worker for successfully eliminating a large portion of the cities drug rings. Nobody would sell to Sherlock now out of fear, but that only pushed him to find lower and crueler methods of getting a fix. Sherlock had thrown his energies into developing his homeless network, and would manage to disappear for hours at a time, into the dark underbelly of London where not even Mycroft’s spies could follow.

 

 

     So when he had discovered Sherlock meeting with someone on a regular basis, in public, he had been suspicious and intrigued. He sent one of his new black cars out, and performed his first civilian kidnapping. Selecting a nondescript warehouse, Mycroft had nervously prepared for the interrogation, hiding behind his cloth armor. Leaning on his umbrella and trying to appear casual, Mycroft had waited as the car pulled in and stopped to release its captive. He had received the same look of cool indifference from Lestrade that day, and it had terrified him. Once he had learned that the Detective Inspector was, indeed, a Detective Inspector, he had relaxed. And once Lestrade had realized that he was not in danger from a convict with a backup group, and was in fact just in the middle of a misguided attempt at brotherly protection, he was more than happy to help. They had moved to a much more agreeable arrangement of meeting for tea on occasional afternoons to discuss the mad genius and his progress. Lestrade had begun to entice Sherlock with crime solving, and once he had him thoroughly hooked, he had mercilessly blackmailed him into a clean lifestyle in order to continue his work with Scotland Yard.

 

 

 

     Over the years, Mycroft had come to rely on Lestrade as a second pair of eyes to watch out for Sherlock, besides the fact that he was quite an enjoyable person to be around. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he liked Lestrade’s dry sense of humor, and if his eyes strayed to him a bit too often while observing crime scenes, well there was nobody around to be the wiser. Such was the case today. He followed Lestrade’s movements across the crime scene, noticing that he had a mischevious look on his face. Leaning forward slightly in his chair, he watched as the Detective Inspector glanced over both shoulders, and snuck back towards his car. What was he doing? He leaned into the back seat… and pulled out a donut box. Well that was anticlimactic. It both amused and slightly horrified Mycroft that Lestrade threw himself so eagerly into supporting the cliché of cops and donuts. He sat back in his chair again and took a sip of tea. The tea then went all over the desk as Lestrade took the box and flipped it open. With his trademark cocky smile, He aimed the empty box at the camera. The inside was covered in Lestrade’s curvy scrawl. It read,

 

     ‘Dinner tonight, 8 sharp, D’Angelo’s. Be there or I know where to find you…’

 

 

     By the time Mycroft had recovered his ability to breathe, Lestrade had placed the box back into the car, and was full out laughing as that odd man… was it Anderson? Looked at him in utter confusion. He went to dinner that night, during which Lestrade completely derailed his latest diet, tallied off Sherlock’s horrific antics, and attempted to shove pie into Mycroft’s face while he wasn’t looking. Overall it was a lovely night, something which needed to be forced upon him more.

 

 

     A few days later, Mycroft was casually flipping through the CCTV footage when he happened upon a small scuffle for a stolen purse. He was slightly surprised when Lestrade showed up on the scene a few moments later – wasn’t that out of his division? He was even more surprised when, after taking the woman’s statement and dealing with the teenage delinquent, he shot a cheeky smile and a wave at the camera before taking off again. The next day, while watching Sherlock argue with Anderson and making up dialogue for the silent and somewhat violent exchange, Mycroft began laughing as Lestrade rolled his eyes dramatically to the screen and mimed actions behind the two men’s backs. Percy peeked around the corner of the office door, looking as if someone had just dumped a bucket of water on him.

 

 

     “Sir? Is everything… quite alright?”

 

 

     He looked over at him, still laughing. “Oh, yes. Everything is lovely.”

 

 

     Percy looked torn between calling for medical attention and fleeing the scene completely.

 

 

     “I assure you, everything is fine. I haven’t gone completely mad, if that is a concern of yours.” He smirked as Percy retreated slowly from the room, and then turned his attention back to his computer.

 

     Mycroft knew he had sunk too far when he found himself sitting at home, in his pajamas, with a stack of old CCTV footage dwarfing his coffee. He had casually requested for his men to sort through the footage and find any bit of tape featuring Detective Inspector Lestrade. He had then taken the tapes home with him, and was planning on spending his day off searching for more secret messages. After wasting half the morning and several cups of tea, he had reached the last few hours of tape. He happened upon a bit that showed Lestrade neither tailing Sherlock or fighting crime, but simply strolling home through the park. He stopped for a moment at his favorite pastry shoppe, departing with yet another donut box. He was insanely jealous of Lestrade’s ability to mime a bottomless pit without gaining five stone, but Mycroft couldn’t help but smile as he watched the Inspector happily munch through a danish. He almost stopped breathing as he was again displayed a handwritten message. This time though, the box read,

 

 

     ‘I love you, and I know you’ve been watching me, you posh creeper. Goodnight.’

 

 

 

     The next day, Lestrade dragged himself into the office, dreading the pile of paperwork he could see from halfway down the hall. This was really the part of his job that he hated to most. Nodding to Donovan and swiping a coffee, he settled down in his chair with a sigh. Best to get it over with. Pausing, he gave the papers a hard stare. Something was… off. He wasn’t this neat. Had Smithely been at his desk again with his OCD? Well, he wasn’t one to complain. He flipped open the first file, grabbing a pen and gliding through the first lines of basic information. He got halfway down the page when he realized it was done already. He flipped to the next. Done. And another. Done. By the fourth page in, he felt very strange. A tiny purple post-it stopped him on the fifth page. The neat script was unmistakable.

 

     ‘I know how you just abhor paperwork, so I thought I would help a bit. And I’m only watching because you are such an avid performer. The cameras love you almost as much as I do darling.’

 

 

     Lestrade’s laughter had heads peeking from every department, but he simply couldn’t be arsed to care.

 

 

 

~~Finis~~


End file.
